Sunday, 7 August 2016

Indian is Islamic State media chief: NIA

Shafi Armar, a resident of Bhatkal in Karnataka, has a dozen pseudonyms and operates across web platforms to recruit youth.

The National Investigation Agency has said former Indian
Mujahideen (IM) operative, Shafi Armar, a resident of Bhatkal in
Karnataka, has been elevated as the “media chief” of the Islamic State
(IS), not only for recruitments in India but worldwide.

Though
the IS has many foreign fighters in its ranks, investigators were
surprised at the meteoric rise of Armar within the terror outfit.

The
NIA has said Armar’s name cropped up during investigations of at least
30 of 54 men arrested across the country for alleged links with the IS.

The
interrogation of these men has revealed that Armar asked them to target
not only Hindu political leaders, government officials and RSS workers
but Shia Muslims as well, one of the charge sheets filed by NIA said. An
NIA official said the IS not only wanted to create communal tension but
also stoke sectarian violence in India.

As per the
NIA’s charge sheet, Armar operates with over hundred pseudo identities
like Anjan Bhai, Gumnam and Chote Maula on over two dozen web-based
platforms like Nimbuzz, Surespot, Telegram, We Chat, Kik and Trillian.

Investigators suspect that the recent propaganda video featuring six Indians in Syria was shot by Armar.

The
agency said in its report that after he fled India in 2008 amid a
crackdown against IM operatives, Armar is said to have lived for few
days in UAE.

He then reached Afghanistan via
Pakistan and with the help of Al Qaeda, raised an organisation — the
Ansar ul Tawhid (AuT), with his elder brother Sultan Armar, who was
killed in a drone strike in Syria in 2015. The AuT later pledged
allegiance to IS and Armar is said to have shifted base to Syria now.

“Armar
is the kingpin who was the connecting force for various individuals
across India inclined towards IS,” says the NIA charge sheet.

The
Armar brothers’ link to IS first figured during the interrogation of
key IM member Yasin Bhatkal, who was arrested near the Nepal border in
2013.

A charge sheet filed by the NIA in 2014 quoted
Bhatkal as saying: “During chat (email), accused A-26 (Shafi Armar)
stated that he desired to be dispatched to Syria to work with other
jihadis...he desired that India should also become like Iraq and Syria.”

Repeated mention

In
a countrywide raid in January this year, NIA arrested 18 men who had
allegedly formed an organization — Junoodul-Khilafa-Fil-Hind (a group
seeking to establish Caliphate in India with allegiance to IS) — to
recruit Muslim youth to work for the Syria-based outfit and commit acts
of terror in India at Armar’s behest.

One of these
accused, Mohammad Nafees Khan told the NIA that in September 2015, Armar
had directed him to meet another accused Mohammad Khalid in Gorakhpur,
Uttar Pradesh, to decide the organisational structure in consonance with
the Shura Council of the IS.

“Armar addressed
members of the group who had assembled in Lucknow, from various parts of
the country to listen to him, on an audio call on Skype. He called on
Khan’s phone and asked the members to arrange weapons and go for
physical training to fight the government and Shia Mulsims,” the NIA
charge sheet states.

Another accused Mudabbir
Mushtaq Sheikh, a resident of Maharashtra allegedly told investigators
that he first met Armar online when he posted comments on a Facebook
page on Khilafat in June 2013.

“Sheikh got a message
from Armar on Facebook and the latter created a Skype account for him.
In June 2014, Armar informed Sheikh that he had become a follower of Abu
Bakr Al Baghdadi, pledged allegiance to IS and was proceeding to Syria
now. For three months, there was no contact between them. Then in
September 2014, Armar contacted Sheikh and asked him to make a timer
bomb using a mobile phone. He told Sheikh that such bombs were used
against American fighters in Afghanistan,” reads the NIA charge sheet.